After a good night's sleep on the Tyson's comfy fold-out bed, we had a relaxed breakfast on the rear deck while we checked the state of the waterways in the region. It was not looking promising, to say the least, with most of the canals and rivers in the north-east of France (our proposed cruising area) closed for at least the next week because of the flooding. There was even some talk that the Canal de Rhone au Rhin (the River Doubs) might be closed for the season because of damage to infrastrucutre. If so, that would throw a real big spanner in our works!

But rather than worry about what might or might not happen in the future, we decided to concentrate on the simple things in the present, like the Water Hen family trumpeting their arrival by the side of the boat.

Finally, around 1100h, we decided that it really was time to leave, after a number of earlier aborted attempts. So we left Phil and Kathy with their good ship Effie, and hoped we might catch up again later in the season (although the problems with flooded waterways was making that more and more unlikely).

We were now headed to Besain, a small village in the French Jura, where friends Sarah and Albon live. While they are currently away at a Karate Kamp near Beziers, they have allowed us to stay at their house until Kanumbra is ready for cruising (after final repairs are finished and the water levels recede). So we headed south via Colmar, Mulhouse and Besançon and arrived at Besain around 1500h, at which time I promptly had a nap to ward off the remaining jet-lag. While I was sleeping, Rita started some laundry, but after tossing the clothes in the front-loader and closing the door, she discovered that the washing machine had a Swiss plug, and we had no adaptor to convert it to a French plug. So now we had the clothes in the machine and no way to unlock the door or start the machine!

After I woke up and stopped laughing at our predicament, I tried to distract myself and was pleased to see that geolocking of Australian TV shows appears to have been removed in the last couple of years, and now we can watch ABC TV shows on I-view and SBS on Demand on our computers. I also found that I could still borrow eBooks from our local online library in Melbourne, so I should be right for reading materials this year.